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Topic: Any tips for a newbie Head NSO? (Read 6195 times)

The league I am representing is one year old and now progressing to a stage where growth is needed. New roles have been allocated to our committee members. I have taken on NSO as the member with some experience of this role.

So far I have printed out the Head NSO handbook, positions, forms and am creating a list of equipment with estimate for our President. I wonder if there is a good source for finding quality equipment at reasonable prices?

We are going to hold a fortnightly discussion for NSO (and rules) and I will be encouraging our freshies and others to attend some boot-camp scrimmages or bouts for the awesome experience they will gain.

I feel as if I am on track so far, but I wonder if anyone could help me out by letting me know what else I could/should be doing at this early stage?

Oh, and our league is planning scrimmages co-inciding with our fortnightly study group.

Scrimmages are invaluable for training NSOs. Most of the positions are relatively simple on paper but can be quite challenging in terms of maintaining focus and handling a lot of information fast in actual play. So until somoene tries the position in bout-like situations it's very hard to see if they will be good at it or enjoy it.

The biggest area I've seen for upgrading from NSOs who can do the job to NSOs who are great at the job is in the communication amongst officials. Most of the NSO positions have small groups of people working together and stressing the need for these groups to maintain good internal communication as well as maintaining good communication between groups can prevent a lot of problems from ever developing and catch them quickly when they do.

For training a new crew, get yourself familiar with the procedures at sanctioned and tournament games. If you start out teaching your crew to function under those procedures, it will make it much easier for any members who want to officiate beyond your home league or pursue certification. Short version of this is make sure you know and understand the standard procedures document for WFTDA officiating.

Echoing Shonuff, it pays dividends to have the *same* NSOs (esp Penalty Trackers) practice at as many of the scrimmages as possible leading up to a bout. Practice, review, and (constructive) critiques at scrimmages make for a smoothly run officiating crew on bout day.

As far as your question on finding quality equipment... it depends what you're looking for (clothing, skates, pads, ref gear, etc). There are many vendors out there, Wicked Skatewear, Derbyskates.com, Bruised Boutique, Rolling Thunder Factory, Roller Derby Depot to name a few. Might make good PR if you find a local skate gear vendor and provide them with business, too.

Beyond what ShoNuff has said, as a newbie HNSO, I'd recommend you find one (or more) experienced HSNOs who are willing to answer your questions. A knowledgeable person who can help you get on track is invaluable. Perhaps introduce yourself to the HNSOs of the leagues closest to you.

There's not much I can say that these guy's haven't already. I've only been HNSO for about 7-8 months now and its a very steep learning curve but incredibly rewarding.

What I will say is scrimmages are the absolute best way to learn/train all the different roles.We put an emphasis on keeping communication with the refs as tight as possible from both sides and it seems to be running pretty smoothly which is great. If I could offer one little tip that helped our penalty trackers especially, it would be go over the hand signals that the refs use and make sure they have a good knowledge of them.In the midst of a scrimmage or bout when everything is so fast and loud they might hear the number but not the penalty and recognising the hand signals makes it a lot easier for them to follow.

Its especially handy for newer trackers that haven't quite got what penalties come under what code i.e false start coming under Illegal Procedure or destruction of pack being listed as an Out of Play penalty.

In scrimmages, I have found it helpful to have at least one person who "owns" each station - these are generally our non-scrimmaging skaters with the best attendance. Then have at least one person learning the ropes from him or her. The primary NSO in each role has the handbook/cheat sheet for the position.

I have been doing a pretty poor job of tracking who, other than that reliable person, has learned each role - we had a poorly attended scrimmage on Sunday due to a schedule change and it took forever to get rolling because I was running around trying to find someone who could jam time.

We use a google doc where everyone's experience level in each position is listed. Right now we use a simple color code for background level and then anyone can indicate positions they enjoy, positions they dislike and positions they want more experience in.

It helps a lot in rostering since you get a quick visual of who is ready for each position as well as what positions each person is ready for.

the biggest thing that has helped me out is putting together a bunch of nso's from my own and nearby leagues that help each other out, rather than press ganging skaters into doing jobs they don't really want to do

You weren't at the WFTDA Officiating clinic on the Goldcoast this weekend just gone??

I would have made it a high priority to go as Intejill hosted the NSO portion of the clinic. Was well worth the money spent.

I would suggest you get as many NSO's to attend weekly scrimmage, even if you break it up and only focus on certain positions every week ie PT, IWB, PW and then your PBM, PBT, LT and SK for example. I do exactly this when I have new people to train as it allows you to focus more on a smaller workset until they are proficient enough to then show other new NSO's themselves.Instigating freshies is exactly what I have done in my League as there will always be a high attrition rate and an NSO role is attractive to those who wants to stay involved with Derby.On scrimmage nights I use the girls warm up and pre scrimmage fitness session to run over any problems, rules or Q&A sessions then close off with an hour of scrimmage to put it into practice.

Sitdown rules discussions are good but you need scrimmage to make it work.

2 things that I feel are important as a HNSO is recruitment and appreciation.

Recruitment is obvious because just like skaters, there are usually some attrition and availability issues with NSOs. I tell the skaters to invite friends who are interested in learning more about derby to scrimmage. When they show up, I usually introduce myself, gauge their level of interest through small talk, and then slip a clipboard in their hands to "explain" the sport to them. Before they know it, they're in the center tracking penalties and I got a new NSO.

The second is appreciation. NSO's don't have fans cheering for them at bouts and sometimes a thank you from some of the skaters goes a long way.

I was hoping you might be able to help me track down an Official NSO handbook... I have looked on line to no avail so far... What I have so far is - WFTDA STANDARDIZED FLAT TRACK ROLLER DERBY RULES, Updated May 26, 2010... My goal is to get an NSO specific hand book...